Texture Maps or Paint?

I know this is probably a very basic question so I'm probably not as good at this as I think I am :-).....but....when I create a nature scene (say a dirt road (or cart trail) in the middle of a meadow), I can't get a natural look to the difference between the dirt road and the grass. It's very sharp and distict. That's fine in a city scene but in nature, there is spill over and disorder. It's not so neat and linear. IS this more a 'painting' issue than a mapping problem? I've seen some really nice scenes that look very natural.

Yeah, there are many ways to deal with this and paint is one of them. I most commonly do some sort of spill-over from the grass to the trail to hide the edges. You can bend down the edges in random places to make it look more natural and less computational. You can paint a texture over the surface or put some geometry over it, such as gravel or something. If it's a trail you might also put some blades of grass scattered throughout the middle along with some mud grooves or something to make it seem more real. A dead give-away that something is 3D is if it's too clean and perfect. Make it imperfect and it will seem more real.

Yes, Steve. I just don't see how I can make it work unless I use plants (grass). I tried an experiment with the texture maps in Photoshop using the clone tool to paint in some rough edges. Still looks exactly what it is - 2 texture maps. What would you suggest within the Paint Tools? I'll try anything. I know it's do-able because I've seen it. I just assumed that it was done by an artist (which I guess it was) but I just can't do it.

If you apply a dirt texture to the ground, and then paint over it with Paint Effects grass, you can certainly achieve the look of grass growing along the edge of a dirt path. You can also insert a few clumps here and there on the path, and increase the density of the grass as you get further from the path, until the ground is completely hidden. Beyond that transitional zone, you'd probably want to fake the grass if possible, rather than use a lot of dense paint effects to keep it thick. But it really depends on the needs of the scene. Do you have any tests or reference images you could upload?

I see what you mean, but how are you currently mixing those two textures together? It looks like a pretty razor-sharp transition.

You can always ease transitions by adding some noise to whatever image or texture you're using to control the blend. For example, let's say you were using a black-and-white ramp to control the blend between two materials. A simple ramp would produce perfectly straight edges like this. But every ramp texture has a 'noise' slider that will add perturbations to the pattern; this will make the border between path and grass slightly uneven and unpredictable.

Another strategy might be to actually have three textures, one a 'transitional' one with maybe some sand and pebbles and so on. Again, using some noise to perturb a blending channel will help get away from that 'too perfect' look.